


My Little Jesse Quick

by jessequicksters



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Background Relationships, Eobard Thawne | Harrison Wells POV, Family, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Jesse "Quick" Wells POV, Jesse & Eobard Centric, Parent-Child Relationship, S1 of The Flash with Jesse as the main character, Solaris references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26697925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessequicksters/pseuds/jessequicksters
Summary: Eobard never expected the damn woman to go into labour during the accident. He doesn’t remember reading much about Harrison Wells’ daughter in the books—a simple footnote on the page. Jesse Wells. Stillborn, as she was.History turns out to be quite malleable.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Jesse "Quick" Wells, Barry Allen/Iris West (background), Caitlin Snow/Eobard Thawne | Harrison Wells (implied), Eobard Thawne | Harrison Wells & Jesse "Quick" Wells, Iris West & Jesse "Quick" Wells, Jesse Wells & Team Flash
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	My Little Jesse Quick

Eobard never expected the damn woman to go into labour during the accident. It’s all premature—a flurry of panic. Her husband is reaching for her, reaching for the brakes like a foal desperately trying to plant its hooves into the ground, but it’s too late as the car meets the spikes on the road and flips.

It all comes crashing down, rather dramatically, even for Eobard’s fantasies. He’s screaming until his throat strains while she lies in dead silence.

“Oh thank god, please—please help me, help me,” the man whines. Begs for his life.

Eobard peers in, assessing the upside-down wreck.

“My baby, no, no, not my baby—Tess,” the man splutters, flooded with tears and panic.

The woman is a mangled mess and the baby is already halfway out.

Something stirs in Eobard, then. His mind recounts the details of the learned past. He doesn’t remember reading much about Harrison Wells’ daughter in the books—a simple footnote on the page. Jesse Wells. Stillborn, as she was.

Unsurprising. Eobard laughs to himself, brushing his gloved fingers over his cold lips. Of course, time would re-arrange itself into a perfect loop to ensure things happen the way they should; have; will. Continuously course-correcting itself as best as it can.

But then again, he’s here to change the course of history.

Something inside him wants to change this baby’s fate—if only for the sake of proof—something to carry into the future. Perhaps even, for a twisted sense of balance. To prove to Barry Allen that Eobard isn’t one to leave open circuits in time. A life for a life. One life taken. Another given.

So Eobard leans in and pulls out the baby, disgustingly wet. It would be easier—and cleaner—with _speed_ , but she’s already coming out alarmingly quick.

“My baby, oh my god—” Harrison Wells reaches for her, but Eobard pulls her away from him.

“She’s not yours anymore,” Eobard says.

And then the long slog of nineteen years begins.

-

Jesse runs before she can walk. She crashes into everything once she’s on her feet—the potted ferns he bought to give an air of calm into this house, the cold metal legs of his brand new study desk, his research papers on the coffee-table, the glass doors she thinks she can just run straight through.

When she starts to read and write and starts to perceive the world in letters and numbers—she learns that his name is _Harrison Wells_. An adequate disguise for an adequate time; the time for greatness will come much, much later.

The early days are said to go by quickly, but for Eobard they’re painfully slow. S.T.A.R. Labs is just setting up—the foundations are only starting to solidify, the science is slowly coming together. His full-time job, then, reminds him a little bit of home: the teaching, the mentoring, showing people rough sketches of what the future could be.

He brings that role home too, with Jesse, who looks up at him with her brown eyes and asks him questions that most infants wouldn’t be able to grasp. She's endearing, intelligent, bright-eyed and curious.

What a life she will go on to live.

-

In Jesse’s fifth year, Eobard’s speed is still nowhere to be seen, or felt. He misses it more than anything—the wind rush, the feeling of flying through space and time, it makes his heart pound even when sitting still, it makes his heart yearn for it. No other feeling comes close.

Time is ticking and progress on the technology is moving at an adequate pace. He’s started planting the seeds for what would be the most crucial part of the plan: building the particle accelerator, but that’s still over a decade away.

He’s still severed from the Negative Speedforce. He’s done the calculations. It doesn’t make sense, as Eobard ponders out loud to the recorder:

“Five years since the accident—five years since I lost my speed and there are still no signs of the speed force in my cells. Gideon says that my body is regenerating perfectly—but it appears I may need a jumpstart for the equation to fall into place. S.T.A.R. Labs is still unable to support even the most rudimentary of prototypes for the particle accelerator so it seems that _patience_ —my second greatest foe, that of which I am continuously forced to exercise every waking day—is my only option.”

He pauses—there’s a knock on the door. Eobard slips the recorder into a drawer. “Come in.”

“Daddy,” Jesse runs in and into his arms for a hug, nestling herself into the folds of his suit jacket—into this frame that doesn’t belong to him, but brings her comfort, nonetheless.

“Hey, sweetheart, why are you still up?”

“Lightning outside. It’s loud—and scary. Will you come to my room?”

“Oh, a little bit of lightning isn’t anything to be scared of, my little Jesse.”

She frowns, doe eyes looking up at him—Eobard has to remind himself that this child is entirely dependent on him.

Harrison Wells had no close relatives and it was easy enough to distance himself from Tess’ family after the accident. He made sure to keep them at arms-length, even when they tried to reach out and meet her.

She belonged to him and him only, and Eobard was never going to let go of that.

“Of course, sweetheart.”

He picks her up as she laughs. He takes off running up the stairs as the rain pours down over their glass ceilings and the crackle of thunder fills the sky. It brings out mixed emotions inside him—the passion of a dark memory she can never know about—the story of Barry Allen, the rush of lightning when they both fought the battle of their lives and how Eobard came to be stranded in this time.

But this isn’t the time for bedtime stories and fantasies. Jesse is scared of something she didn’t understand. His duty then, as a faster, is to teach her that there is nothing to be afraid of.

“I know you’ve probably learned about this already, but do you want to know how lightning works? Beyond the fifth-grade textbooks—let me tell you about the molecular composition of lightning.”

-

“What do you mean she’s gone,” Eobard says to the meek primary school teacher—a small woman in a floral blouse, rapidly blinking in panic. Utterly incompetent.

If times weren’t so fragile, Eobard would easily dispose of her.

But it’s been a long time since that—a long time since he’s been free to be himself. Some things never change, though. He still has to do everything on his own.

Where would Jesse go? She’s been awfully quiet since she started middle school. Meanwhile, Eobards’s been busy going from conference to conference at all the top institutions of this time, all across the country, gathering names, data, potential connections that may provide useful in the years to come.

Amidst all this he’s been neglecting his duties as a father.

He looks outside and sees her running away from what looks like a group of other kids, all bigger than her. He frowns, rocking back in his heels as he takes his hands out of his pockets and points a finger at the scene.

“Would you excuse me—” his eyes dart down to her nametag, “—Karen.”

He runs over towards the parking lot but loses her in the flurry of cars trying to leave at the end of the school day. Finally, right behind the godawful red Mercedes that’s trying to reverse into the road, Jesse’s standing there like a startled goldfinch.

Eobard runs to catch her, grabbing her by her backpack and pulling her into his arms from behind. She’s doesn’t realize the distance her father covered to get to her, skidding across the car park in a blink of an eye.

-

This is going to be the last time Eobard uses his superspeed around Jesse.

One taste is all it takes for it to be ravishingly addicting—oh, the speedforce can push even the most controlled people to spiral.

Eobard isn’t an addict.

He knows how to control himself.

He’s learned that lesson once already, on the night of Nora Allen’s death. Eobard has never needed to be taught things a second time.

-

As Eobard explains why Jesse cannot allow for other children to push her around, even when she may be younger than her peers, even when she doesn’t fit in—because she doesn’t, and she shouldn’t have to—the lines around her brows begin to crinkle as she holds back small tears.

“Jesse,” he sighs, pressing a hand to his temple.

“Why can’t I stay with my friends? Why do I have to keep moving up grades? The others—Mar’i and Candy say I shouldn’t be in middle school yet. They say I don’t belong.”

“You don’t have to belong to be better than them,” Eobard says, kneeling down on the floor to face her on the sofa.

“I don’t want to be better than them! I just want them to like me,” she sobs, running upstairs into the bedroom.

Eobard closes his hand into a fist and takes a deep breath. Certainly, a child wouldn’t understand the intricacies of the quilt of time. Her place in this world was never predetermined. She’s a rogue element, unaccounted for in the future.

She is entirely his responsibility, his doing.

-

He realizes that it’s not enough to play the part: of scientist, father, friend—the time eventually comes when Eobard has to internalize it.

He swallows the future like foxglove to kill Eobard Thawne.

He finally commits to becoming Dr. Harrison Wells—and the pieces start falling into place.

-

A noticeable shift happens, then, when Harrison finally understands what Jesse was crying about all of those years ago.

People start describing him as amiable, even warm sometimes. He picks up glances from others, as they look at him with warmth, corner him during big conferences to speak to him with extended eye-contact, a brush of fingers on his wrist when they’re passing him another glass of champagne.

He never takes anyone home, no—Jesse is to be protected from this side of him, and things like this tend to interfere with early development—but he learns more about people than he ever did back in his time.

“You surprise me, Harrison,” she says, buttoning up her shirt by the mirror as Harrison slips his hands into her briefcase for a drive. She’s too busy looking at the bruises on her neck. “I thought that after Tess—ah, I shouldn’t. You’ve just always seemed so—soft. But in recent years, I’ve heard that you’ve changed. I never realized that this is what they meant.”

She laughs, resting her ringed finger onto the back of her neck.

He enjoys playing the part: of the widowed scientist who came out the other end with a sharper edge.

Jenny turns around, flushed. “I know, I’m so sorry—I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

Harrison finishes tying his shoes and grabs his jacket by the door. “We’re done here.”

“Harrison, wait. I’m so embarrassed— _god_. Will you still be around tomorrow evening?”

“A woman of your intellect, Jenny, you certainly don’t need me to feed you all the answers all the time.”

The string of broken hearts continue. It’s exhilarating—and as far as physical fulfilments go, it’s the added layer of psychological play gives him the rush that keeps him from giving in and using his speed.

Hearts are strong—they can withstand a lot of stress—but they can also give out at any point. It just takes the right amount of pressure at the right time. Fed with the drug of dependent emotions and then poisoned with extraordinary amounts of pain.

His next lesson, which will only fully reveal itself at the end of days, will eventually teach him that these very same rules will also apply to him.

-

Jesse’s flicking through Stanislaw Lem’s _Solaris_ with her feet up on the table at an intern’s desk. It’s nearly six o’clock and there’s still no sign of her dad. She blows her bubblegum as it makes an audible ‘pop’—no one looks at her in this lab. They’re all still working away like mindless drones.

She sighs. She should’ve known better than to expect actual quality time when her father invited her to come by the lab. Instead, she was stuck with an English assignment that she was behind on and not at all interested in doing.

Books are boring. Movies are better, but for some reason, being a film major is off the table even for someone about to enter freshman year of college at the age of fifteen.

Well, it all hinges on her actually completing her final assignment for the term—and for some reason, she decided to listen to her dad’s recommendation for this awfully boring book.

She hears footsteps clacking towards her in a rush and looks up.

It’s Doctor McGee. She looks upset about something. Her dad mentioned once or twice that they don't get along, but Jesse never quite understood why.

“Do you know if my dad’s still working?” Jesse asks, and Doctor McGee turns around, surprised.

“Yes, Harrison’s still with the new recruits,” she replies, curt.

“Oh,” Jesse nods.

“I don’t think we’ve met—” she walks over to Jesse’s cubicle, and she gets up far too quickly. “—I’m Doctor Christina McGee. You can call me Christina.”

“I know who you are.”

“Ah,” she smiles. “I could wager on the things you’ve heard about me from your father.”

“Don’t worry, I never listen to him,” Jesse replies, coolly. She’s learned from her father that people are more likely to open up if they believe you’re a neutral party in the conversation.

Christina’s eyes dart down to the book that Jesse’s reading, tossed aside on the table.

“Your father should be showing you around the lab, not leaving you here to sit with wet prose. He tells me you’re a scientist. What are you interested in?”

Jesse nods, brushing her hair from her face. “I’ve seen the lab. Lots of times. I used to—when my dad was still setting up this place, I liked to hide in all sorts of corners of the building. It used to drive him crazy.”

Christina’s still smiling, though something tells Jesse that she doesn’t find that nearly as amusing as she does.

“You remind me a lot of her,” she says.

Jesse stills. “Excuse me?”

“Your mother.”

“You,” Jesse’s voice almost gets swallowed whole, “you knew my mother?”

Jesse finds something wistful—even a little sad—in Christina’s eyes.

She quickly composes herself. “We used to be a merry band of friends, the three of us. I was so thrilled for them. To watch them fall in love, get married, that was special. What they shared, you couldn’t find it anywhere else.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I apologize, my dear, I shouldn’t have—”

“No, no,” Jesse steps forward just as Christina backs off. “I meant—I don’t really know what to say because my dad never talks about her. I really have no idea what she’s like. Would you tell me more?”

Christina nods, and Jesse feels her heart swelling, bruised with an impact she’s been waiting for her whole life.

“Tess was a light. Your father adored her more than anything in this world. She always strived to make the world a better place, and I would think that any daughter of hers would strive to do the same.”

-

Her dad is still distracted when Jesse’s packing up to leave, at last. Well, distracted on the actual _leaving_ part. His focus is entirely on a pretty young woman, with high heels and a cream-coloured tight pencil skirt. Her hair is in a perfect ponytail, brown hair popping against her icy skin.

He doesn’t look at a lot of people like that, Jesse thinks. They’re walking out of the interview room and she shakes his hand, gripping far too tightly, before turning around and leaving with her folders clutched tightly against her blouse.

“Jesse, there you are,” her dad says, pulling her close for a hug that she barely reciprocates. He looks down at her and sighs. “I apologize for keeping you waiting like that, did you finish reading your book— _Solaris_ , wasn’t it?”

She nods.

“What did you think about my recommendation?”

“It’s fine,” she replies.

“Fine,” he repeats. “Huh. I suppose you don’t have any theories, then, about the material composition of the ocean in Solaris? Mimicking, reflecting the thoughts, experiences and feelings of those that come in contact with it.”

“It’s science fiction, Dad. What does it matter? Besides, my essay is about the portrayal of human consciousness.”

“Human consciousness is a _science,_ Jesse—the subconscious, don’t you think it’s as powerful as any alien ocean out there? All the things you don’t see beneath the surface. All the things that drive you to do things—the things you never even thought you were capable of doing—all before the realization of what you’ve done reaches the forefront of your own consciousness.”

“Yeah? Is that where mom’s been then? In your subconscious?” Jesse finally pipes up. His eyes suddenly look glaringly cold behind those glasses.

She worries, for a moment, whether she’s gone too far. Her dad has never been anything but kind to her, throughout her entire life, but sometimes that’s all there is to it: a surface-level kindness. What if there was something else underneath? Something beneath the visible consciousness?

He looks at the clock to the side of the room and back down again. “I was going to take us out for a nice dinner tonight at the new Japanese steakhouse downtown, but I think we could do with some father-daughter time at home. Come on, the car’s waiting outside.”

“I want to talk about her,” she says, only then hearing her voice breaking. She tugs on his wrist just as he turns to walk away. She feels something—like static—in the way his fingers move to clasp around her wrist; it’s light as a feather, and probably nothing, something in the fabric, but it jolts through her skin as she pulls back.

“Jesse,” he says as she’s sniffling back tears. He pulls her in for a hug as she can barely keep it in anymore, stroking her hair gently while she holds on tight, tears staining his shirt. “Let’s get home. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. You know I love you, sweetheart. You’re all I have.”

-

“I shouldn’t have let Christina get in your head.”

They’re eating takeaway at the dining table after a shower, both dressed in their pajamas. Jesse’s wolfing down some sushi with a pair of chopsticks while her dad is cutting into a plate full of wagyu steak.

“She seemed nice enough,” Jesse shrugged. “She told me that you used to be friends—the three of you,” she looks up to meet his eyes, “with mom.”

Her dad laughs bitterly, shoving the bloodied meat into his mouth.

“Yes, we were friends. But your mother and I, we were always a united front. Even when things changed, as they usually do in life, we always stood by each other. Christina, she never understood that.”

“So what happened?”

“S.T.A.R Labs happened.”

“You and mom founded it. Without Doctor McGee.”

He nods, taking a sip of his wine before setting it down again. Jesse’s empty hand reaches for it, but he quickly slots in a glass of water in it instead. He smiles wryly as she presses her lips together in defeat.

“Christina had objections to what we were doing. She thought we were going to build something together, but our visions weren’t aligned. Never were, really. I mean, she’s a brilliant scientist, but the entire branch of particle physics I am looking into is far greater than she could ever comprehend. Nothing wrong with that. We all move at our own pace—I’ve set mine to exceed what’s expected of this century.”

Jesse’s no stranger to her dad’s spiels. He actually promised they would talk tonight—no bullshit—but she could never blame him for being excited about science, about his big plans for the future; she could never blame him for the ways his mind raced back and forth because it seemed like the only thing keeping him going some days.

“Doctor McGee is a successful woman, though,” Jesse says, indulging this part of the conversation for a little longer. “Why would she still be jealous of you today?”

“Now that, my dear Jesse, is standard Darwinian competition. Surely you learned that in your biology class.”

“Two years ago,” she smiles. He steals a piece of sushi from her plate as she shakes her head and pokes his shoulder with her pair of soy-drenched chopsticks. “Dad!”

He smiles now, a softer look brushing across his face. “I was interviewing the new recruits today. First step towards building my greatest work, the particle accelerator. It’ll change the entire cours—”

“—Course of science, the future, yada-yada. I know, Dad. Who was that woman you were talking to?”

He looks up and replies, “Caitlin Snow. She works at Mercury Labs. Well, she did until this evening.”

Jesse’s eyes widen. “So that’s why Doctor McGee is still bitter. You’re poaching all of her employees.”

He takes another sip of the wine. “Only the best ones.”

-

They end up watching a movie-and-a-half, before actually talking about Jesse’s mother. It’s a school night. She shouldn’t be up this late, but she can’t go to bed without finally talking about it.

It’s the first night she learns about the accident.

She was always told that the car crash happened after she’d been born, but that was a lie.

How will she live the rest of her life, knowing that she was born in the fires of her mother’s dying body?

“Would mom have survived? If I wasn’t—”

Her dad clasps his hand around the back of her head, allowing her face to rest in his chest. The bouncy wool of his midnight grey jumper soaks up her tears.

He whispers harshly, _No._

-

Jesse gets drunk for the first time at prom night. She’s three years younger than the rest of her peers, which means—none of this is new to them, just her, but she takes it all in stride. She’s made a decent number of friends over the course of the year; they helped her pick out her dress, her shoes, taught her about boys and sex and how to prepare for her first time.

She thinks tonight might be the night, with Anders Jensen from junior year. They get dropped off at her place while the rest of her friends move on to the afterparty. (Her dad enforced a strict midnight curfew on her—and she wasn’t in the mood to test him tonight.)

Anders is trying to find the bathroom and accidentally stumbles into her dad’s study instead. Jesse rushes to over and thankfully finds it empty.

“My dad’s working late tonight, don’t worry,” she reassures him. She ushers him out and is about to close the door again until she spots something she hasn’t seen before on the table. 

It’s a model of the particle accelerator.

Anders asks about the bathroom again.

“It’s right by the stairs to the right,” Jesse calls out. “Hey, give me a minute, okay? Just wait for me in the kitchen when you’re done.”

She walks over to the table and finds the schematics for the entire thing, trailing her fingers on the perfectly crafted model. All the details are there. Did he paint this himself? Knowing her dad, this is probably built to scale, as well.

His handwriting is a blur of messy scrawls that she can’t quite read. He has a habit of writing too fast, like someone was constantly watching over his shoulder. What was that joke about doctors again?

It hasn’t really settled yet just how close her dad is to achieving this. Just a few more years and the world will truly be changed. Advancements in science, technology, medicine—and she hasn’t even made the effort to learn about it beyond the basics.

If her father is going to change the world, then she wants to be a part of it too.

She hears a clanging from the kitchen and rushes out.

Her dad is standing over Anders by the kitchen counter, frozen in place while trying to fill a glass of water. The water overflows from his cup and Jesse gestures at him to turn off the tap.

“Dad!” she says. “You’re home—early.”

It ends with her and her dad in the study again, as it’s always been for as long as she can remember.

-

Harrison doesn’t get surprised very often, but tonight ends up being one of those rare nights where Jesse turns the world upside down with a simple sentence:

“I want to work with you on the particle accelerator.”

She’s cleary inebriated—glassy-eyed, sweaty, flushed on the cheeks, with her hair a mess from the night of dancing and god knows what else with that boy that had to be sent away.

But there’s a rush to her that Harrison hasn’t seen, not in all her fifteen years of growing up. It’s the rush of someone sparked alive by the possibilities of the future.

“Jesse, you’re very smart but—”

“I can help you finish it _faster_.”

For the first time in fifteen years, Harrison feels the future changing.

-

Twenty years. That was how long Harrison estimated it would take to build the particle accelerator in this time. Now, with Jesse’s contributions, Gideon calculates that they can get it done in just about eighteen.

It won’t alter the timeline, Gideon’s checked. He will still get what he wants—everything he has always wanted—just much sooner.

-

The trail of bodies begins piling up when the building of the particle accelerator ramps up. Life begins to move at a much quicker pace—one that Harrison has sorely missed over centuries.

Mercury Labs is currently working on producing tachyon particles. Ancient names start becoming more and more relevant in this time. Eiling. Stein. Raymond. Rathaway. His latest recruit, Cisco Ramon, proves to be an excellent addition to the team.

He gets along well with Jesse, who’s working towards three Bachelor’s degrees and two Master’s simultaneously, while spending the little free time she has at S.T.A.R Labs. She doesn’t seem to be overworked. She’s been taking college-level classes since she was in middle school and she’s not one to struggle keeping up.

Among all of this, Harrison’s best kept secret is still just that: a secret.

Barry Allen.

He’s been watching him throughout the years. Every minute of every day, Harrison is constantly being chased by dreams of _the Flash._

He knows where Barry goes to college. Knows what classes he’s taking. Knows what he’s allergic to. Knows how often he’s visiting his father in prison. Knows who he’s dating, breaking up with. Knows who he’s actually thinking about, who he’s going to marry, much later in the future. Knows when he’s eventually going to disappear into the laughable storms of fate.

In the same way Barry has not stopped thinking about his mother’s death, Harrison has not once stopped thinking about _him_.

-

“A toast, then, to the greatest man in science. For seventeen years of relentless progress, rousing speeches and double-edged compliments,” Hartley raises a glass to the small audience in the lab. “As we celebrate Dr. Wells’ accomplishments tonight, past, present, and future, let’s not forget to clock in our overtime hours.”

Harrison laughs, placing a hand on his chest. “I did offer to get us a nice dinner reservation for tonight, but you all refused.”

Dr. Snow looks at him with an earnest twinkle in her eyes. “We knew you’d be restless all night if we didn’t show you the results of what we’ve been working on. We love you, Dr. Wells, but you’re not exactly known for your ability to relax.”

“I don’t think any of us know what the word even means anymore,” Cisco laughs helplessly, taking a swig of the champagne.

Ronnie puts an arm around Caitlin’s waist and smiles absentmindedly. Harrison notices the bags under his eyes, the tired stretches of skin on his forehead. He’s barely been sleeping all week. He looks around and sees similar signs on the rest of them too: Hartley’s got that glazed look in his eyes, Cisco’s hair isn’t as neatly curled as it usually is and Caitlin—well, Caitlin’s always beautifully put together, but Harrison can sense the fatigue there too, by the way she’s shifting her weight between her heels.

Harrison sighs. He’s spent the past month out of state with Jesse, working on the finer details of the particle accelerator at LexCorp. It happened to tie in with Jesse’s dissertation on biophysics.

She’s taken a particular interest towards studying acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter that sends signals to the muscles to move. She’s writing about the ways the mind-muscle connection could be amplified by stimulating these neurotransmitters. (Needless to say, Harrison found this a _very_ interesting topic of choice.)

In his absence, his team has been working on the finishing touches for the base skeleton of the particle accelerator. It’ll take about a year to get it fully operational, but this was a massive leap in progress.

One that Harrison wouldn’t want to come with a cost.

“Would you like to go down and see it?” Caitlin says excitedly. “Ronnie’s been working day and night to finally get all of the components to all fit with one another other—”

Ronnie smiles at her fondly and takes over. “We’re still waiting on the shipments of the liquid helium for the cooling system, which may take more than a month to arrive. In the meantime, I still need to finish the calculations to figure out how we can maintain its optimum temperature to prevent the electromagnets from overheating.”

“You’re getting slow, Raymond,” Hartley chides, arms folded.

“You’ve done more than enough, Ronnie,” Harrison says. “I know you, more than anyone, have spent countless hours bringing this to life. Thank you for your hard work on this—all of you. You’ve given so much of your time, your effort, your trust—in me. In my project. You all deserve a fun night out.”

He pulls out his phone to call a cab. “Let’s all head into town. Cisco, what’s the name of that bar you mentioned last time?”

Cisco snaps awake. “Oh! You mean _Gotham’s Sirens_?”

“Are you sure that’s just a bar?” Ronnie asks, as Harrison starts typing out the location.

Hartley protests. “Dr. Wells, are you not even going to spend a moment to look at what we’ve done? After the entire month you spent away from us, just to keep Jesse company on some college project?”

Everyone snaps their attention towards them.

“Dude,” Cisco says.

Caitlin opens her mouth as if to say something, but Harrison interrupts her, walking closer towards him.

“Hartley, you know my daughter means a great deal to me,” Harrison says, slowly, as Hartley’s looking down at the ground now.

“Now, I could chalk up this latest outburst to fatigue and stress—I certainly know I’ve had my moments in the past—but in case it I needed to make it clear, I would appreciate it if you keep Jesse’s name out of it from now on. Have you forgotten that she was also a crucial part of this project?”

Hartley nods quietly. “I apologize, Dr. Wells. I promise it won’t happen again.”

He pauses, scanning the signs on Hartley’s face. He’s embarrassed—good. Harrison’s been far too patient with him, but despite everything, cares a great deal for him. He’ll never learn, Harrison knows this.

Some men can never overcome their weaknesses. Hartley will eventually fall into ruin.

“I trust it won’t,” Harrison finally says.

-

On the night of the particle accelerator launch, Jesse arrives in Keystone to find ten missed calls from Hartley Rathaway. She only sees it once she’s above ground again with cell signal.

“Hartley? What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Your dad. He’s gone crazy. He won’t listen to me,” Hartley growls. He sounds frantic and angry—but there’s something else Jesse has never heard in Hartley’s voice. He sounds scared.

“What? What’s going on? Aren’t you guys supposed to turn on the particle accelerator within the hour?”

“It’s going to blow up, Jesse. I ran the calculations by him and showed him the numbers. He’s kicked me out of S.T.A.R. Labs. He won’t listen to me. He’s going to turn it on and the dark matter particles are going to flood the entire city.”

That can’t be right, Jesse thinks. That doesn’t sound like her dad at all. He would never let a miscalculation slip—not that he’d miscalculate anything to begin with, especially something that large.

Her mind is splitting in a thousand different directions. Dad couldn’t do this. He just couldn’t.

There are moments, when Jesse’s watching him working late at night, that she finds nothing in his eyes. Like there is nothing else in this world that matters to him. He stares into space sometimes when they’re out for brunch—a few seconds that last a lifetime.

(Waiting and waiting for the first two atoms to collide.)

“Send me all the evidence you have right now. I’ll look over it on the train and try to get there as fast as I can.”

-

She wasn’t meant to be there during the particle accelerator explosion.

It’s Hartley’s fault—the self-righteous bastard—and the one thing Harrison never accounted for. Jesse re-entered Central City’s borders on the train, the very second the dark matter was released into the air.

He can’t help her, not like this. He overhears nurses saying that she’s in a coma, but there’s nothing Harrison can do.

He has to continue acting the part. He has to lie down in the hospital room, motionless and visibly paralyzed, rearranging probabilities of the future once again.

-

Barry Allen stays in a coma for nine months.

Jesse wakes up in two.

This—this was not the plan.

-

Jesse wakes up with lightning pulsing through her veins and sound of her electric heartbeat slowing down to a beat per minute.

She looks around and the world seems frozen. Coffee, from Cisco’s mug on the table, is floating in mid-air. Dr. Snow is going over some files at the other end of the room.

Her father, sitting in a wheelchair, is right by the door of the med bay. His eyes are locked on her. What happened to him? Her gut flips. She could throw up any minute.

“Dad?” she runs over to him as the IV tubes get yanked right out of her skin. She doesn’t care. She’s awake and even though she feels like she’s been asleep forever it also feels like her life has only just begun.

Time starts resuming at normal speed again—the world wakes up along with her.

She loses control of her balance and falls into her dad’s arms. His wheelchair slides back down the ramp and into the cortex. Jesse rushes over to grab onto the handlebars from the back and it happens again; the rush of lightning; time grinding to a perfect halt.

It resumes again when she stops moving.

“Jesse, you’re awake.”

“Yeah,” she croaks, moving around the chair. “Dad, what happened to you? What’s happening to me? I don’t understand—”

“I promise, I’ll explain everything to you, Jesse. You’re all I have.”

-

Her dad seems distant, ever since she woke up from the coma. It’s been a few weeks since she’s woken up and they haven’t once had a vaguely normal conversation.

“Do you remember anything from the night of the particle accelerator explosion, Jesse?”

“No, not really. I just remember being on my way to Keystone, but I don’t know why I was on the train back to Central City. I don’t remember.”

He looks at her for a while, in that way he does when he thinks she’s keeping a secret.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Dad. I really don’t remember,” she huffs. It’s been a long day of being hooked up to more tubes and scanners—Jesse’s tired of all the tests, all she wants to do is get out there and _run_.

“Jesse, I assure you this is all for us to be able to gain a better understanding of what’s happening to you.”

That’s it. She rolls her eyes and storms out of the med bay, grabbing her jacket in the cortex. He’s trailing behind; the mechanical sounds of the wheelchair is a constant noise they’ve all gotten used to now.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“To see my friends. To talk to someone, Dad. Maybe a therapist. I don’t know, just someone—anyone—who would actually talk to me about anything other than the amount of tachyon particles inside my body!”

He folds his hands in his lap and nods. “I see. You’re mad at me for not spending enough time with you outside the lab.”

“It doesn’t matter where we are! Inside the lab, outside the lab, it’s all the same talk with you. Do you know what I felt when I woke up from my coma? It wasn’t the new powers or the speed that frightened me the most, it was seeing my dad in a wheelchair, not knowing if you were going to be okay or not.”

Jesse shouldn’t be going off like this. He’s being attentive, understanding, but she absolutely needs to say this, for both their sakes.

“You always say to me, ‘You’re all I have.’ You’re all I have too, Dad. If I lose you—I can’t—”

He wheels over to hold her hands and look up at her. He takes a deep breath and says, “It’s my job to worry about you, Jesse. I am sorry if it seems like I’ve only been paying attention to your newfound abilities—but Jesse, in the same way you’ve been scared of my current state, I am _terrified_ of what this means for you. I am simply a man who has been paralyzed for the undetermined future—though Dr. Snow believes this will be permanent, I can live with that—but what’s happening to you, on the other hand, is beyond our current understanding of science and physics. You know how I feel about unknown variables.”

She nods. “You don’t trust them.”

“Precisely. I don’t trust them—which is why I’ve been working so hard to run all these tests, check on your vitals, learn as much as I can about this new and extraordinary ability you’ve gained, because how could I live with myself if one of these unknown variables would eventually hurt you?”

“Okay. I get it, Dad.”

“Speed is a very dangerous thing. You know I’ve always fussed over the smallest of your injuries.”

“Yeah, you made me quiet volleyball in middle school because of the bruises on my wrists.”

“It’s a terrible sport, Jesse.” They both laugh as she recalls those memories. He’s right. He’s always looked out for the both of them.

“Maybe it wasn’t so bad that you made me switch over to track and field. Even though I was never anywhere near the sprinting leaderboards.”

“You’re good with the hurdles—brilliant aerodynamic technique. Speaking of, are you going to rejoin the team again at CCU? Term’s only just started. You won’t be too far behind. I went over to campus last month to talk to all of your coaches about ensuring your place on the team.”

“Last month? Dad, I was still in my coma.”

He smiles, cheeks warm. “I know. I couldn’t just sit still and wait for you to wake up, sweetheart.”

-

“Now, Mr. Allen, if only you would be so kind as to speed up your re-emergence into the world, it would be greatly appreciated.”

Harrison watches Barry sleep. He’s been sleeping for nearly five months now, with no signs of waking. He’s not an impatient man (this is a plan eighteen years in the making and it will not unravel now) but Barry Allen is known to be able to test those careful limits.

“You look so young. And I could kill you. Right now. So easy—” Harrison lifts and vibrates a hand—feeling the speedforce rushing through—before slowly backing away. Limits.

“What I wouldn't have given—oh, all those times before I've had you like this, so helpless. Just like my Jesse, the first night I found her, helpless. But she has done nothing wrong, _Barry_. She is an innocent. Unlike yourself. Fate's tricky, isn't it? I come here to destroy you, and then to get home I have to be the one who creates you.”

Of course, fate also birthed yet another speedster. Jesse. Always early, always so. . . quick. She’s itching to jump into the superheroics, but Harrison’s cautioning her and telling her to focus on school. She’s mostly listening, but it’s no secret that she’s been running to Cisco for training after classes.

“You know I panicked at first,” Harrison laughs, unbridled amusement. “Haven’t felt like that in years. Everything’s been going so slowly, but she keeps surprising me. I thought about whether to get started on this next phase without you. She’s already sped up the first part of my plan. Now, I could train Jesse, make her go faster, then eventually take her speed, but no, no, no. That wasn’t what I came to do.”

He leans closer to Barry’s face and whispers, “You’re not getting off that easy. Nothing is forgiven. I promise you, Barry Allen, there will be a reckoning—and then, you will die.”

-

Jesse watches Barry Allen sleep sometimes and thinks about what he’s dreaming, whether he’s dreaming at all, and whether or not he’ll be like her when he wakes up.

Iris West comes and brings him flowers every now and again. Her dad, Detective Joe West, comes and visits just as often as she does.

One night, Jesse walks in to see Iris seated over Barry on the bed. She can barely make out the words but manages to catch a couple of things: “Detective Pretty Boy asked me out the other day. . . See, I do dumb things like that when you’re not around.”

Jesse watches closer as Iris weeps into Barry’s hand. “You made us a family again. Come back.”

Jesse feels, then—for a brief moment—time being sucked into statis.

It’s almost imperceptible and she barely has time to look around, much less move, as it passes by. Iris bumps into her on the way out and smiles at her with no real effort.

“Oh, you’re Dr. Wells’ daughter, right? Jesse?” she asks.

“Yeah,” Jesse nods.

“I’m Iris. I watched you when you were side by side with Barry in the hospital beds after the accident. Your father was in a separate wing but the two of you, in a coma—I’m glad you’re awake. Must’ve been hard for your dad to watch.”

Jesse looks down. “It was.”

“Dr. Wells says that there’s hope for Barry still. I don’t know what to believe anymore, you know? We were all so desperate, but then your dad came in and convinced us to move him into S.T.A.R Labs—I mean, look at you! You’re healthy and up and running.”

Jesse freezes—she’s not meant to tell anyone about the whole _superspeed_ thing. But it’s just a figure of speech. Of course. She laughs awkwardly as she tries to continue the conversation without making it too obvious.

“Don’t give up on Barry. If my dad thinks he can make it, then he can make it.”

“Thanks. It’s nice to meet you Jesse. Listen, if you ever need anyone to talk to—I know you’re some sort of super genius—”

“Dad really needs to stop telling people that. I like normal things, too. Not just theoretical equations.”

Iris laughs, crystal warm like honey. She has eyes that Jesse feels like she can trust. There’s something honest about her that she doesn’t come by often.

“I know what it’s like to want to do something about an impossible situation. Caitlin’s been telling me that you’ve been spending all your spare time trying to figure out Barry’s condition. You don’t have to do that. You’re young and you should be pursuing what you want. What you really believe in.”

No one’s ever spoken like that to Jesse before.

She keeps Iris’ words close to her chest; it rings in her mind when she’s running so fast she’s certain that she’s just broken the sound barrier.

-

“You need a supersuit,” Cisco says.

“I don’t—I mean, do I?”

“You definitely do, girl. I know your dad is loaded but I am pretty sure that Dr. Wells won’t be happy if you keep burning through your Air Jordans.”

“I may have told him I needed more money this semester for some extra curriculars."

Cisco shakes his head. “Like I said. Supersuit.”

-

Jesse learns she’s not the only one.

There are others like her. They’re called metahumans.

“Dad, I have to do something.”

He nods, if not reluctantly. “I know. Now run, Jesse, _run_.”

-

Working with Jesse is unlike anything one could ever imagine. It’s such a rush. His very own daughter: a superhero. He could’ve never dreamed of this. Once upon a time, Eobard Thawne wanted to be the Flash. Fate crushed those dreams like dark berries in the palms of a vengeful god.

Fate returned with a new gift; a gift which may seem sweeter on the outside but is packed with more than enough poison to kill ten gods at once.

He is faced with the gift of redemption. (Or, the opportunity for it.)

He’s speaking into the dictator in the Time Vault again:

“Besides, if this plan works, what will I bring into the future? Fate—what fate will I choose for my very own daughter? Will she ever understand? Will she forgive me? All of these questions are things I cannot account for and therefore they are all unknown variables. My dear Jesse, you have made my days in this time infinitely brighter and yet—you have also made it so, very complicated.”

-

Barry Allen finally wakes up.

Harrison feels the threads of this timeline beginning to unravel. He can barely take it anymore. He’s struggling to keep it together. Barry, who looks at him with admiration and a certain _obsession_ —that is not unfamiliar to Harrison—makes the memories of that night come flooding back.

They dive right into it: the training, the suit, the mentoring and most importantly, the name. Harrison runs into the future Miss West-Allen at CC Jitters and tells her: _“Clever name. The Flash.”_

Her eyes sparkle when she smiles. Harrison knows this is a love for the ages, even though Barry might not know it yet.

He continues to inspire Barry to be faster, to do more good. It’s addicting, this persona. He will miss it. He will struggle to live without it, at first. Time travel is a tricky thing: the people you once knew are not who you thought they were, or who you remembered them to be.

Barry Allen from the future, well, Harrison carried nothing but hatred for the man, but this Barry Allen is soft and optimistic, not yet hardened by the harsh scrapes of time and the formidable villains yet to come.

“I want to do my best, not just for this city but also for you, Dr. Wells,” Barry says in the cortex. “You made me who I am today. I want to make you proud.”

He feels lightning pulsing inside. Lightning soon to be let out.

“I could listen to you say that all day, Mr. Allen,” Harrison says to himself as the footage from earlier today pauses.

He looks at the Reverse Flash suit in the Time Vault. It’s been far too long.

“Gideon?”

“It is still only able to take eighty percent of its original capacity—but the suit is now fully charged, Dr. Wells.”

“Good. Let’s pick up where we left off, _Flash_.”

-

Ever since Barry woke up, Jesse’s been noticing a shift in the air. Her dad’s been distracted. He’s been paying too much attention to Barry. She’s not insecure about it, because she’s more than capable of keeping herself busy. She’s been teaching Barry the ropes too, on the field, in the lab. After all, she is the more experienced speedster between the two of them.

Her and Barry run back to S.T.A.R Labs after a particularly close encounter with a telepathic gorilla. Barry’s broken several bones after the supersonic punch they did together and everyone’s swarming around like ants.

“Caitlin—”

“On it, Dr. Wells,” she replies, as the two of them usher Barry onto the medical bed.

“Barry, you should’ve listened to me when I told you to _let Jesse take the lead_.”

“You’ve fractured every bone in your right arm and if it weren’t for your abilities—” Dr. Snow says, with that mothering tone she uses when they’re both trying to prove a point. Her dad raises a hand and gestures at the screen, displaying an X-Ray scan of Barry’s arm. They're always on the same side of every argument with the team these days.

Ever since Ronnie died, Caitlin’s been colder towards the rest of them. More paranoid. She’s still loyal to her dad, though. He comforts her, it seems. Or, they comfort each other. (Jesse notices the way their physical therapy sessions run late every Wednesdays.)

Jesse winces at the sight. “Dad, don’t blame Barry.”

He inhales sharply. “Barry isn’t fast enough to do what you do without getting injured. He isn’t making progress at the same rate you did, because we’ve been letting you two run around town together with far too little guidance. From now on, you’ll both run your own separate missions. One speedster should be more than enough to defeat most of these metahumans we’ve been running into.”

“But Dad—”

Barry interrupts. “No, Jesse. Your dad’s right. I should’ve let you take the lead instead of pushing myself to go faster and slowing you down. Now, Grodd’s out there and it’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault, Barry,” Jesse says, as she stomps out of the room.

-

After they capture Grodd, Jesse finds her dad in their basement putting her suit in the washing machine. He’s already in pajamas, ready for bed, and for the first time Jesse thinks about how exhausting it must be for him to oversee not one, but two superhero speedsters every day.

He turns around and realizes she’s there. He raises an eyebrow in mock embarrassment, “Cisco fried the laundry room at S.T.A.R Labs yesterday. I thought I’d get it done for my little runner so she can rest and save the city all over again tomorrow.”

-

It’s five words. Five words that slides the pieces out of place for Jesse.

Five words she overhears when Barry and Dad are spending a late night together in the speed lab. She almost doesn’t recognize the voice—a chill sweeps over the room when she catches it.

“Barry,” the voice says. _“You need to get faster.”_

-

Jesse finally grabs that coffee with Iris at CC Jitters one morning.

Iris rushes in ten minutes late, with a heavy laptop bag and multiple files poking out from another bag. She looks different—tired, or even worried.

“Is this not a good time?” Jesse asks, fiddling with the mug of warm cocoa.

Iris tries to play it cool, but something cracks.

“You don’t need to pretend around me, Iris, or treat me like a kid you need to keep secrets around.”

Iris sighs. “You’re right. I promised that you could tell me anything, would it be okay if I told you something instead?”

“Yeah, of course.”

She looks around, as if someone might be watching them. Jesse feels chills in the room again.

“You know that Barry’s mom was killed right?” Iris says, voice low.

Jesse nods. Barry mentioned, one night when they were on patrol together. She didn’t know what to say. She just froze and stood there as the cars drove past them and the winter wind blew in their faces.

But Barry was understanding and kind about the whole thing. He didn’t press for a response or make it awkward it any way. He said, _I know you lost your mom, too. She would be proud, seeing who you are today._

Something about that night will always linger in the back of Jesse’s mind.

Iris continues, “Barry thinks that same man is back. He’s a speedster.”

“What? How is that even possible? Does my dad know about this?”

“Your dad’s been working on it with Barry,” she replies, looking down at the steaming coffee mug. Jesse leans back in disbelief.

She looks back up at Jesse.

“As far as I know, it’s just the two of them, so no Cisco and Caitlin, but Barry eventually told me. He’s scared, Jesse. You’re the smartest person I know—I mean, before the Flash showed up in Central City, you were the one saving us from nuclear men and metas who controlled the weather. You made sense of the speedforce before anyone could even understand what it was. So, I cannot, for the life of me, understand why your dad is keeping this a secret not just from you, but from the rest of the team, too. I have no one else to turn to on this.”

-

“Do you trust my dad?” Jesse asks Barry.

It’s the hardest question she’s ever asked. His answer is going to determine the path she takes next. It’s not a road she wants to follow, but it’s the one with answers at the end of it. It's what she's been taught by her dad her entire life: to question things, to follow at the evidence, no matter what.

He sighs. “I did—I used to, but these days. I don’t know, Jesse. Some things aren’t adding up.”

She pulls down the sleeves of her jumper over her hands and nods.

It’s dark ahead and all the lamplights are broken. She needs to move full speed ahead. She can’t afford to stop and get lost in the night.

-

Her name is Jesse Wells.

She grew up with a single father, Dr. Harrison Wells, from the minute she was born. Her mother, Tess Morgan, died in a car crash.

She’s nineteen years old.

One year ago, when the particle accelerator exploded, she was put into a two-month coma. Police reports show that she was struck by the electricity in an underground commuter train going to Central City from Keystone.

Her father was put into a wheelchair by the same accident. He was in S.T.A.R Labs, at the heart of the explosion, with the rest of the core team.

Ronnie Raymond died in the explosion. Cisco and Caitlin are still around. Hartley Rathaway—is missing?

Something stirs in the back of Jesse’s mind. Hartley. He’s a missing piece of this puzzle, somehow.

Hartley was Dad’s favourite. He beat Jesse in a game of chess in her first week at S.T.A.R Labs. (Her dad hasn’t been able to do that since she was twelve.)

Where the hell is Hartley Rathaway?

-

It becomes apparent that there are things about her childhood that most people would deem less than normal. Barry helps her make a list, because according to him: ‘I didn’t exactly grow up normal either, but this is definitely weird, Jesse’.

She looks back on it and keeps it hidden in her back pocket, wherever she goes. Because these are all memories, of her and her dad; this is her life, this is the person she’s loved and looked up to all her life.

He’s all she has.

-

She meets Iris at CC Jitters for coffee every Monday. Sometimes, they talk about the latest episode of the newest reality show they’re binging; other times, they talk about the weekend football game (which Jesse knows nothing about, but Iris gets pretty excited about NFL season).

Today, Iris walks in with classified records from the CCPD.

“Your phone records were sealed but I managed to pull a few strings. You were on the phone with Hartley at Keystone station, right before you got on the train back to Central City. I got Cisco to look into what we managed to retrieve of your phone from the accident. It was pretty fried when we found it, but—look. You had this file open right before you passed out.”

Jesse reads the print outs of the document. They’re a mix of schematics, calculations and big, flashing warnings of the fact that the particle accelerator was going to explode. She doesn’t want to believe it, but the memories are coming back now. Hartley was right. Her dad engineered this entire thing.

“Has Cisco read this? Or Barry?”

“No,” Iris says. “I said you deserved to see it first.”

“Thank you, Iris.”

An emergency warning flashes on Jesse’s phone. Location: the waterfront.

“I gotta go,” she says.

By the time she runs to the scene, Barry is already there.

“Flash!” she says, surprised. They’ve had separate mission assignments for the past month.

“Jesse Quick,” Barry spins around, panicked. “King Shark’s taken down a cruise ship ten miles out into the sea. We need to get all the passengers out.”

She nods. “How many?”

“Six-hundred and fifty.”

“That’s not enough time,” she says.

Her dad comes on the comms. “Jesse, Barry, listen to me. It’s not enough time to get them out one-by-one but I need you both to use your speed to generate waves that will push the ship back to shore.”

Jesse and Barry look at each other skeptically.

“I told you both that one speedster is enough to face most situations in this city—well, this one most certainly requires two. You need maintain the buoyancy of the ship and run fast enough to generate the force required to push it closer to shore. Barry, you’ve been getting faster, you’ll be maintaining the ship’s buoyancy by running in tight formations around it and drawing out the water. Jesse, you have the endurance, you need to run in sweeping strokes of about the span of a mile back and forth to generate those waves.”

“Dr. Wells, I—I don’t think that’s going to work,” Barry says.

“Barry, listen to me—”

He turns off the suit’s comms.

Jesse sighs. “Barry, I know you don’t trust my dad right now, but we need to do this.”

“He murdered my mom, Jesse. I know it, I just do.”

Jesse speeds over to jolt some electricity into Barry to put them into Flashtime—it’s not the time to confront this. They have a ship full of people to save. Jesse understands just how deep the pain goes; she thinks about her mother, thinks about how she died, thinks about just how her dad never talks about her.

Everyone says that Harrison Wells and Tess Morgan were two people who were meant to be in love with each other. Jesse’s never sensed that loss anywhere, and it’s not down to grief. Christina McGee doesn’t even recognize the Harrison Wells of today.

Harrison Wells and Tess Morgan wanted to make the world a better place. Releasing dark matter into an entire city, well, the only good that’s come out of that is—

“Jesse Quick and the Flash,” she says to herself.

Time is running out; she drags Barry by the arm as they both run on water to bring a sinking ship back to shore.

-

“He needs our speed for something,” Jesse says, arms folded as they’re gathered around the evidence board in CCPD with Barry and Cisco. “I’ve thought about it and this is what my entire life has been about. Speed. Lightning. It’s why I learned so fast when I first turned into Jesse Quick. He’s been teaching me speed theories my entire life. I wrote my dissertation paper last semester on the science of enhancing our bodies’ natural speed through an organic chemical.”

“Acetylcholine,” Barry nods. “Yeah. Dr. Wells showed me your paper when we were training in the speed lab. We did a couple of experiments to try to supercharge the production of the chemical inside my body with the speedforce.”

“He didn’t try that with me,” Jesse says.

Cisco’s been quietly stewing in the corner amidst all this.

“I saw something.”

Barry and Jesse turn their heads.

“What was it?” Barry asks.

“It’s—a dream, or something. I’ve been getting these visions of Barry chasing the Reverse Flash. It feels like—it feels like you guys are racing beyond space and time, I can’t describe it. Like it’s been going on for centuries. You’re simultaneously in the past, present and future. I don’t know what it means.”

“What about me?” Jesse asks.

Cisco drops his gaze and shakes his head. Nothing.

A rival for Barry. A promise of the future. A legacy.

Nothing for Jesse Wells.

It’s as if she was never meant to exist.

-

Joe West finds the body.

Harrison Wells’ body.

Jesse throws up the entire night and stays over at Iris’ apartment that weekend.

-

It’s all gone to shit.

Jesse knows.

His disguise is broken; cracked open like a porcelain mask. For better or for worse, Eobard Thawne is back.

He wonders, if it’s worth trying to make her understand. It’s risky, yes, but despite everything—Jesse means everything.

He thinks about one of their last special nights together, just a little under year ago, when things weren’t quite so tense. It was movie night and Eobard had chosen Tarovsky’s _Solaris_.

“It’s so _slow_ , Dad,” Jesse complained, already flat on the sofa, cocooned inside three blankets.

“Are you so sure about that? What if—say, we look at it from a new perspective. You see Tarovsky’s long, intentional shots?”

“Yes,” she says, face buried in the blankets. She’s not even watching the movie anymore.

“Right, now, imagine that from the perspective of someone moving so fast through the world, that it appears as if time is slowing down around them?”

Jesse shifts under the blankets. Eobard can practically see her rolling her eyes. “That’s not what this film is about.”

“It’s not, no. But imagine if this was your life.”

“If I was stuck on a space station going mad while a sentient ocean constructs dead people out of my consciousness and my memories of them?”

“A little bit. Humour me, Jesse. Really, I want to know what you think.”

She crawls out of the blankets and sits up. “Well, I would probably think about what it all means. What the ocean is trying to tell me. Look at what happened to Hari. She starts out as a construction of Kris’ repressed memories, but she then gains independence. She can’t kill herself, no matter how hard she tries, no matter how this reality—this existence—sucks. Hari, theoretically speaking, can’t exist without Kris, but she eventually turns into something else. Something new.”

He looked at her, with astonishment and pride. “Transformation. That’s your reading of it.”

She shrugged. “It’s what I wrote in my essay. Remember? In my senior year, right before graduation. You never had time to read it in the end, but it was actually inspired by you. You could’ve ended up in statis, when mom died, like Kris who wasn’t able to let things go. He stays at Solaris, becomes obsessed with it. Constructs an entirely new reality and gives in to it. But you’re the great Harrison Wells. You’re the person who’s always taught me to look ahead, no matter what. The past—”

“—has already been done before,” Eobard finishes.

She stood up, rifled through their cabinet of Blu Ray’s and picked up a copy of Die Hard.

“Can we watch this one next?”

-

Jesse finds her dad bent over the cabinet of DVDs in the living room, with a copy of Die Hard in his hand. He turns around to see Jesse, in full speedster outfit, trying to keep still behind the mask.

“I know it’s you,” she finally breaks the tightness in her throat. “I know you’re the Reverse Flash. I found your little room in S.T.A.R Labs, the tachyon charger underneath your wheelchair. You’re not paralyzed. You’re not even _him_ —you’re not my dad.”

“Jesse,” he says in barely a whisper and stands up very slowly. Jesse spots something on one of his fingers, clenched tightly into a fist: a ring with a lightning bolt on it.

“Who are you?” she asks, because it’s all she can bear to say. Because if she starts going into the _whys_ and _hows_ she thinks she might break. He knows this. He knows this because he’s known all of her weaknesses her entire life; he’s tended to her wounds and broken hearts, too.

“My name is Eobard Thawne. I come from the future. Is that the only thing you want to know, Jesse?”

He sounds cold. His speech feels calculated. He’s been preparing for this for a long time. Jesse takes a deep breath and continues with what the team’s priorities are.

“Why did you kill Nora Allen?”

He grins, as if this is all a joke. “Now that’s between me and Barry. Jesse, I never wanted you to get dragged into this. It’s all a shame, really, when you first woke up from that coma, I instantly knew that you had the speedforce inside you. What a gift. I admit I was jealous—but I’ve never been more proud of anyone. You make Barry Allen seem like a disappointment, really.”

“So you gave Barry speed,” Jesse nods, feeling the rising anger inside. “What about me? What, was I just some accident, then? Collateral damage?”

“Yes.”

“Is that what happened when my parents died in that car accident?”

“Yes. I saw you. You were so small, so helpless. I thought that maybe, I could be the one to give you the chance at a life. You’re not meant to exist, Jesse. In every timeline, every Earth, you die before you were even born. We’re two peas in a pod, you and I. Neither of us really belong.”

“I am nothing like you,” Jesse growls.

“Aren’t you? Aren’t you still my daughter? Daddy’s little girl?”

“Stop it,” she runs at him and sends him crashing into the wall. Picture frames fall to the ground and smash into a million pieces.

He looks down at the broken DVD on the ground. “Bummer. I was going to bring that one into the future as a little keepsake. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a future to return to.”

He shoots out the Reverse Flash uniform from out of the ring and speeds right into it and into the streets. Jesse runs right behind, quickly catching up.

They run right through the city, tearing through busy streets and up the faces of buildings, riding their lightning from one rooftop to another, phasing through cars and doors and taking sharp turns in small corners. Jesse’s brain is used to staying focused, but this is a whole other ballgame.

Barry was right. He is fast. He’s been doing this for centuries. She feels a rush of wind from behind her and turns around: it’s Barry.

“Jesse, whatever you do, don’t do anything rash. We need Thawne _alive_ for my mother’s confession,” Barry says as they’re both running in parallel.

She speeds ahead anyway.

The three of them run so fast they end up tearing through the space-time continuum in the middle of the Las Vegas desert.

Barry runs back in time to try to save Nora Allen. Jesse is given the same opportunity, by Thawne, who waits and watches.

If she saves her parents, she will no longer exist. It’s a small price to pay to give two innocent people their lives back, but something about time-travel sticks in her mind. One of Dr. Stein’s lectures: if you change one thing in time, you risk creating an even bigger aberration further down the line.

One person shouldn’t have the power to do that. She can’t account for all the changes in the future that’ll occur if she chooses this path. She hates her life—hates the lie that it is, but this is what it means to be human. There are a lot of people hurting in this world, but most people are shouldering their burdens without changing history for other people.

She doesn’t want to become like Thawne.

“The past has already been done before,” she says, decisively.

He speeds over and takes her hands by surprise. His eyes are desperate, yet deathly serious at the same time. “Come with me, sweetheart. Come with me into the future.”

She freezes up. _This is her dad speaking to her now. Not Thawne, not the Reverse Flash._

“Jesse, please. None of my plans were ever about you, but now I realize my entire life has become about _you_. I never anticipated I would be a father. I never anticipated just how much you would mean to me. Barry Allen is my destiny, but you’ve become my future. Or my chance at one, at least, if you choose to come with me.”

It’s not fair. None of this is. “You were the only person I had!” she cries, taking off the mask. She gets partially blinded by the light of the wormhole, quickly growing. “How could you do this to me, Dad? How could you throw away my entire life like this?”

“I know, Jesse, I know. In the future, we can be a family again—”

Barry jumps back out of the wormhole. It starts to destabilize and she can’t take any more of this. She grabs Thawne by the suit and runs right into the wormhole.

“Jesse, no!” Barry yells, but it’s too late as she runs deeper into the time stream.

She jettisons Thawne into the future. It’s not precise, by any means, but it’s good enough. Far away enough from where they are now.

“Find your way back yourself.”

She runs back into the present and closes the wormhole.

-

He leaves a confession tape for Barry. He gets some form of closure.

Nothing for Jesse.

She gets nothing but the shards of memories from the past nineteen years.

-

When the dust settles and the clouds part, she moves into a new apartment. Barry helps her move in and it takes them exactly two minutes and forty-one seconds for them to set everything up.

“You doing okay?” Barry says. “Iris and I were going to go for dinner but if you want company, we’d be happy to order in for a little housewarming party.”

He smiles, warm and kind. Jesse politely declines.

Everyone shows up anyway.

Cisco brings over the latest copy of Grand Theft Auto as a gift; Caitlin brings her her favourite homemade lemon pies; while Joe and Iris bring one of Grandma Esther’s deadly cocktail concoctions.

“Thanks for coming, everyone, it really means a lot,” she says, awkwardly from the middle of the room, cocktail glass in one hand, water from the ice dripping on the outside.

She still feels numb on the inside. It’s the look of sympathy she can’t stand. She looks over at Barry and reminds herself that she’s not the only one who’s felt this way before.

“You’re family, Jesse,” Iris says, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You’re one of us, okay?”

She smiles, letting herself slide closer inside Iris’ arms as she takes a deep breath. She tries not to cry that night, not until everyone’s almost gone and it’s just her and Barry.

“It really hurts,” she cries into his shoulder as they’re both sitting on the sofa together. He pulls her into a gentle hug. She feels the spark of lightning, jumping from her chest and into his.

**EPILOGUE**

Months later, breaches start to open across the multiverse.

Harry Wells is a man who’s lost everything.

He lands on Earth-1 and meets Jesse Wells.


End file.
